


The paranoid premonitions of a sometimes-addict

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Gen, Good Sibling Diego Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Season/Series 02, Road Trips, Soft Luther Hargreeves, Visions in dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28471695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Klaus closes his eyes, and he opens them to a dream.It's the end of the world, and he is afraid.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	The paranoid premonitions of a sometimes-addict

_Klaus closes his eyes, and he opens them to a dream._

_At least, he severely hopes that it's a dream and not some cruel, twisted reality._

_He dreams of flame and rubble, of dust in the air and smoke in his nose. The sky is red, and the very breeze is hot, like a desert wind._

_His ankles cramp from climbing over the loose stones. There is a sound behind him, the rough clinking of stone-on-stone, and he spins to see little Number Five, knees scraped raw and fingers bloodied, kneeling in a mound of rubble and clawing at the fallen stones with his bare hands. His skin is caked in sweat and dust, his uniform muddied at the hems._

_In all his years, Klaus had never seen Five cry, but he thinks that this must be the closes thing he will ever come to it. Five is breathing heavy, and Klaus knows from experience that this must smoke must be wreaking havoc on his lungs and throat._

_There are bodies in the rubble. Klaus doesn't need to get a closer look to know who they are, all bloodied and broken beneath the mountains of fallen stones. Luther. Allison. Diego. There's another body close by, wearing a familiar furred jacket and laced leather pants and knee-high boots. He decides not to look too closely at that one._

_Panicked, Five climbs across the piles of rubble, not worrying about the shards of glass cutting into him of the stones that shred his skin._

_He calls for Ben, and for Vanya. Sometimes, for Grace and Pogo and even for their father, though Klaus can't imagine why. Eventually, he gasps a gulping breath of grimy air before collapsing on the ground, wrapping his hands around his legs and staring dejectedly at the ground._

_The air smells of sulphur. The sky is red and dark. It is silent, save for Five's ragged breathing and the constant crackling of numerous nearby fires. Heat prickles his skin, though he doesn't know why. His mouth is coated in dust just from breathing. It is a picture of every apocalypse film that Klaus has ever seen, and he hasn't seen very many._

_It's the end of the world, and Klaus is afraid._

He woke abruptly with a gasp just as their ugly, paint-peeling mini-van drove over a pothole. He blinked for a few moments to get his bearings and tries to slow his rapid breathing as he peered out the window to be met by the passing streetlights and the darkened landscape. Natural darkness, not apocalypse darkness.

From behind the steering wheel, the seat pushed back as far as it can go, Luther glanced at Klaus in the rearview mirror, his eyebrows quirked upwards. "Hey. Are you alright?"

Instead of answering straight away, Klaus glanced at the other occupants in the van. Beside Luther in the passenger seat, Vanya slept soundly, her hair covering her face and her breath fogging up the window. As the only one small enough to fit into the cramped space behind Luther with relative ease and comfort, Five sat curled up against the window, and even in deep sleep, his face was still pinched with tension. In the backseat, Allison and Diego slept almost on top of each other, Allison leaning against the door with her arm around Diego's chest, and Diego sleeping across her legs like a pillow, snoring loudly and soundly.

Clearing his throat, Klaus tried to seem aloof. "Yeah, big fella, of course I am. It's all hunky-dory back here in the kid's section. You just focus on your driving."

But Luther didn't look convinced. "You were talking in your sleep. You don't have to tell me, but it sounded pretty intense. I guess... I don't know. I just wanted to make sure you're alright, is all."

At first, Klaus wished that Luther knew when to keep his mouth shut. But then he glanced at Five and changed his mind.

"If you _must_ know, you worrywart, I just had the strangest dream about our little Number Five," he said slowly. "And the apocalypse."

He could practically feel the way Luther looked at him. "Uh, really?"

Humming, Klaus wrapped his coat tighter around himself. "Yes, really. It's safe to say that it was pretty fucking weird. It felt... real, almost."

"Wait," Luther said, the cogs in his head turning at double-speed. "Like, a dream as in a _premonition_? Please don't tell me that we're going to have to save the world from another apocalypse. We just averted two!"

"Don't get your panties in a bunch," Klaus rolled his eyes. "It felt like it was in the past, somehow, but also like it had already happened. I don't know how to explain it to you."

"Right," Luther said. "You don't want to talk about the fact that you're getting premonitions?"

Though Luther couldn't see him, Klaus shrugged, momentarily forgetting about the darkness of the backseat. "Now that Ben's gone, I guess it's kind of freed up space for other things, like having weird fucking dreams about past and possible future events. Who knows? Anything can happen now. It's not like I know what I can do other than getting screamed at by ghosts."

Biting his tongue, Luther's grip tightened on the steering wheel. "Look, Klaus, I'm not going to lie and tell you that I understand how your powers work, because I really don't-"

"Welcome to the club, dude," Klaus said. "Neither do I."

"- _but_ I've been doubting you all our lives, even when you told us you saw Ben and we didn't believe you. So, if you're telling me that you're having future-guessing dreams, then I believe you," Luther continued. In the darkness, Klaus looked at the back of his big, dumb head in surprise. "But why do you think you had one about Five tonight? And... what? The apocalypse he was stuck in?"

Klaus glanced over to Five, curled up and fast asleep in the corner, lips pressed into a hard line like he was dreaming about mathematical equations. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe it's because of all the time jumping. Maybe it's because he's back. Maybe because it's just crazy that he spent most of his life alone in an apocalypse. I don't know."

After a moment of silence, Luther breathed slowly through his nose. "Wow," he managed, "Uh, what was it like? Five's apocalypse?"

"Hot. Dark. Dusty," Klaus said. "Smelled like farts."

"Farts?" Luther repeated, confused.

Nodding sagely, Klaus stared out the window. "Farts."

"Oh, for _fucks_ sake, do the two of you ever shut up?" eloquently demanded a groggy voice from behind him, and Diego's head rose from Allison's lap and appeared over the edge of the headrests. "What are you even _talking_ about?"

Luther glanced in the rear-view mirror to look at him, and Klaus shifted violently so he could look Diego in the face, grinning at his dishevelled hair and the red imprints on his face from lying on Allison's dress. "Sorry, Diego," Luther said. "Did we wake you?"

"Well, I was asleep and now I'm not, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say _yeah_ , you did," Diego griped. "What the hell are you even doing up now, Klaus? Isn't it past your bedtime?"

As Klaus was about to make a face at him, Luther interrupted. "Klaus just had a dream. About Five. And the apocalypse. And he isn't sure that it's not something that happened before."

Nodding, Klaus turned back to face Diego. "The apocalypse smells like farts."

Eyebrows raised, Diego looked at him like he had just spoken German to him. "That's fucking weird, Klaus."

"Poor little Number Five!" Klaus huffed as he flopped back down against the seats. "All alone at the end of the world. I'm used to being alone, but that must have sucked _major_ donkey's balls. Look at him, dreaming about murder and bloodshed, like all respectable young children do these days."

"You weren't alone when you had Ben, you dumbass," Diego sighed good-naturedly. "Did you see any of us? Where were we?"

"Dead as a doorstop," Klaus said simply. "Ben and Vanya weren't there, for obvious reasons, but the rest of us were. We must have bit the bullet trying to save the world like a bunch of heroic assholes."

Luther diligently kept his eyes on the road. "Well, at least we died doing something honourable. But we've averted that apocalypse already, and the one in 1963, so there's no way that could happen now. Right?"

"No idea," Diego said. "Five's the time-travelling apocalypse expert. You'll have to ask him."

Their mini-van drove beneath a streetlight and the interior of the vehicle was illuminated, just for a moment. Klaus got to look at Five, peaceful in rest but somehow still stressed even in sleep. He could hardly imagine that he was a sixty-something assassin in a child body who was stuck in the apocalypse for most of his life and was alone for so long that he gave a manikin a consciousness and developed a romantic relationship with it. He just looked like a little kid, like the Five that Klaus used to know, sleeping against the window of the car, curled up on the seat and dreaming of better times as the world slowly passed him by. 

"You know, I guess now it all makes sense why he came back a little bit-" he made the universal symbol for _coo-coo_ against his head. "Nuts. Enough time spent alone in that place would be sure to rattle anyone marbles."

There was a moment of pensive silence between them, no sound but the rumbling of the engine and the hissing of the air passing over the exterior of the car when Diego cleared his throat. "Why didn't you tell us that you could see the future before, Klaus?" He changed the subject. "You've never used it before."

"It's a recent development, jackass, and I don't even know if it's really something I can do or if I just so happened to have a dream that meant nothing at all. Or it could have meant everything. It might have been _nothing._ Luther called it that, not me. I just said that it felt like a very real dream," Klaus explained. "But on that note, you can hold your breath for, like, forever, and I never see you doing that, _Kraken_."

Diego opened his mouth to retort, but either Luther saw him in the rear-view mirror or just sensed a squabble about to break out because he interjected before things could get heated. "Enough, _children_ , no arguing," he said. "Don't wake the others. They need their sleep."

Sighing, Diego rakes a hand through his hair and scratches at his scalp. "Oh no, not the others. God forbid," he yawned. "How much longer have we got until we get to the hotel?"

Luther glanced at the passing street sign. "A couple more miles. But I'm going to have to pull over before we get there to sleep for a while or get one of you to take over. We've been driving for a long time, and I'm pretty beat."

"Get Klaus to drive," Diego said unhelpfully. "Maybe Mr Preminition could predict the car crash we're inevitably going to get into before it happens."

"Oh, Diego, _honey_ ," Klaus said sweetly. "You know I can't drive."

"Enough," Luther said again with no bite. "Don't make me come back there."

The threat was only semi-serious, and they knew it. "Just keep your eyes on the road, big guy. I want to get to our next shitty hotel in one piece. Allison or Vanya would be your best bet for a shift change unless you want to deal with Five." Diego said as he rested his head back against Allison's shoulder.

"Goodnight, Diego," Klaus cooed obnoxiously. "Sleep well! Don't let the ghosties bite!"

To his surprise, Diego huffed out a laugh. "Goodnight, Klaus."

Luther chuckled quietly, casting one last glance at them in the mirror before returning his full attention back to the road.

As Klaus settled back with his arms wrapped around himself, he watched Five and couldn't stop thinking about him, or the apocalypse or the whole lifetime he had to live alone and without his family.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that Klaus doesn't have premonitions but I wanted to write something about that first scene of Five in the apocalypse and Klaus seemed like the best person to have a dream of something like that, even if it was just an incredibly accurate dream. Happy New Year!


End file.
